Herman L. Knapp

Herman Ludwig Knapp (11 April 1929-) was a US Air Force colonel who was declared "missing in action" on 24 April 1967 during the Vietnam War.

Biography
Herman Ludwig Knapp was born in Roselle, Union County, New Jersey in 1929, and he married Helene Knapp, a Colorado Springs resident, in June 1952. Knapp rose to the rank of Colonel in the US Air Force, and he served in the Vietnam War. On 24 April 1967, he and navigator Charles Austin flew from the Ubon Airfield in Thailand to bomb a five-span bridge four miles north of the city center of Hanoi, North Vietnam with the goal of severing the country's rail links with communist China. During their strike, their plane was struck by a flak burst, disintegrated, and fell to the ground in a fireball. The two men were declared "missing in action", as they were believed by some to have bailed out of their aircraft before the explosion, but, eleven years later, Knapp was declared legally dead. His wife Helene became an activist for the POW/MIA cause.